brave new world

people have been blogging for years....
not so for us
this is a brave new world for us

like any "first," this first post isn't easy
where to begin?
think positive, bobby
i'm in a bookstore, sipping an americano...
good way to start a blog
many of our friends, those seasoned bloggers, have given us some guidelines,
some of which we've adopted...
so lemme state three of ours:

first, more pics, less words
second, we're gonna write a lot about God
third, our goal is update friends/fam on what God's doing in japan and to galvanize readers to pray and partner with Him thru us....

k, onto some basic update questions:

q: when did u leave gordon-conwell?
july 1....we packed up our honda and drove x-country for 14 days
stops (in order):
wash DC,
then philly,
then columbus,
then st louis,
then ames iowa,
then boulder colorado,
then salt lake city,
then bellingham (wa),
then san fran,
and finally LA by july 15....

awesome sights & great times with friends/fam along the way
can't say we'd live there, but iowa was cool
4th of july w/ good friends in philly...can't get much better than that
the stretch from bellingham (wa) to san francisco was spectacular

q: where are we living now?
claire and i are staying with my folks in aliso viejo (u may know it's more famous neighbor in south orange county: laguna beach)
we've also been staying with claire's family in salinas (the lettuce capital of california)
our parents are terrific and have been a safe harbor for us

q: what are you doing these days?
meeting friends and family to build our support base and share our heart for japan (pic below)taking care of transitional matters (visa, packing)
learning japanese (one baby step at a time on rosetta stone)
teaching and preaching occasionally
lots of time stuck in traffic (the OC-to-LA pipelines are brutal)
recording tracks with friends for a English-Mandarin worship CD project (more on this later)


q: when are you going to japan?
nov 2nd, as of this week....woo-hoo! (our monthly funding level is hovering at 90%)
here are some pics we wanna share with u

the church plant to which we've been assigned is meeting in this community center (above) in Gakeuntoshi...Gakeuntoshi, by the way, is a growing suburb of Osaka located near five universities...the Gakeuntoshi church is being planted by a large mother church in Nishionoma (below):

the senior pastor of the Nishionoma church is Pastor Makio Kodairu....below he is pictured with his wife, two daughters, and son:

...consistent with Asian Access' philosophy of teamwork and national church partnership, we will be joined by a solid team of lay leaders and members from the mother church (unforunately i've exceeded my pic limit so i'll share that pic with u later)...totally excited to meet and serve with these strong japanese brothers and sisters in christ.

gotta go now...thanks for sharing our first post with us....here's to many more to come!

cheers in christ,

bobby and claire